


She said, "Can I see you later and love you just a little more?"

by Arya_Greenleaf



Series: Love in an Elevator [2]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied Past Peggy Carter/Angie Martinelli, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Medical, Reunion Sex, Rough Sex, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-06
Updated: 2015-05-06
Packaged: 2018-03-25 02:10:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3792682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arya_Greenleaf/pseuds/Arya_Greenleaf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been over two years since the Valkyrie went down; since their life together came to a screeching halt before it even got a chance to start. It's been two years of using what resources could be spared searching and dogged determination to bring him home. At the very least, after all that the War and the SSR had taken from Steve, they could try to give him a proper burial beside his mother in Brooklyn to go with the Irish funeral they'd all given him after the smoke had cleared and they were all safely back at headquarters. To deal with her grief, Peggy does the only thing that seems truly reasonable: throwing herself into her work. She was doing well, moving on, until a ghost walked into her office and told her she was late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She said, "Can I see you later and love you just a little more?"

**Author's Note:**

> **POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNINGS:** Death/burial related talk within. Mentions of examination and preparation of remains. Some heavy-ish grieving and coming to terms with Steve's "death." Some brief medical related things when he's discovered to be not, in fact, quite dead yet. Some blunt Sousa/prosthesis related talk. I think that covers everything that's potentially upsetting without being too spoilery. If you see anything else that _needs_ to be warned or tagged for, please let me know. I tried to use tags that would act as a catch-all/main tag for anything people would want to exclude from searches based on my own tag searching and seeing what is listed as a main or related tag.
> 
> This is the farthest thing from happy PWP that it can possibly be. I'm not sure how this happened. You've been warned.

Peggy smiled and ran her fingers over the cool metal frame of the photograph on her desk. Angie's face beamed out at her from behind the glass, her arm slung tight around Peggy's neck. They were in front of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center, bundled up in winter coats and hats and scarves and mittens, all knitted for the ladies at the Griffith by Carol's mother (though woefully sans chicken pockets).

"I can't believe ya got back yesta'day and ya didn't come home, English! I'm wounded. Heartbroken! Insulted!"

Peggy struggled not to laugh, "You know the boys, darling. Can't function without me."

"Yep, just can't properly man them switchboards." She could practically hear the wink in Angie's tone. After the entire Dottie Underwood affair and with the start up of SHIELD, it had become apparent that if the people closest to Peggy were to remain safe, they needed to understand exactly what she did for a living. Peggy couldn't afford to keep watch over her loved ones at all times, as few as they were, they needed to be able to watch their own backs. The two of them still teased each other about her work at the phone company, made all the more funny by the fact that the SSR field office in Manhattan was legitimately hidden inside a functioning telephone company.

"Well, yer lucky, Peg."

"How so?"

"Since yer home earlier than expected, y'kin make it to my Broadway debut."

"You got the part?" She imagined the ear-to-ear grin that Angie was probably wearing on the other end of the line.

"Well, I got _a_ part. I'm in the ensemble, but I get a ton'a stage time and if six oth'a girls can't go on then I get to play the lead."

"Oh?"

"That's freakin' fantastic, innit?" Her excitement was infectious. She'd gotten two small speaking roles in a couple of limited off-Broadway runs in tiny theaters, but this, evidently, was making the big time.

"It absolutely is, Angie." Peggy looked up when there was a knock on her door, her secretary looked utterly distressed. "I'm afraid I have to go. I shall be back in the city this weekend. We'll celebrate. Dinner at the Stork? Eight o'clock on the dot. We'll have Amaretto Sours and Lindy 'till we drop."

"Aww, ya spoil me, English. Give my favorite G-man a nice hug for me, ah?"

"Will do." She meant Thompson. She didn't mean a hug.

"Director Carter, I--" The secretary  seemed overwhelmed, like she was about to fall to pieces.

"Miss Huff?" Her jaw worked around unformed words.

"We've just... We've got a call from..."

"Margaret, whatever it is, I cannot deal with it unless you tell me whatever pertinent information you've just received?"

"It's Mr. Stark. We've got a call from Mr. Stark." Peggy looked at her expectantly. "One of our Russian implants contacted him. They launched some kind of oil drilling operation way up north... they... they found something."

"Yes?" Peggy was beginning to lose her patience even through her mounting concern. Huff wasn't normally like this. She was more than competent, more agent herself than just a secretary most days.

"They've found him."

"Found who?" Peggy's stomach dropped. Her head spun.

"They've found Captain America, ma'am."

Peggy didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. She did both. The secretary disappeared for a moment and returned with a box of tissues. "Oh!" She took one and blotted her eyes, mindful of her mascara. "Thank you, Miss Huff."

Huff tentatively set the tissue box down and came to Peggy's side of the desk to wrap an arm around her. "Mr. Stark is en route to the drilling site to secure the... the remains. He said to tell you that Mr. Jarvis is at your disposal as a pilot if you'd like to follow him."

Peggy leaned into Huff's embrace dropping all pretense of professionalism. Her eyes flicked to the set of framed portraits on the wall, Barnes and Steve side by side among others. "Get Stark back on the line if you can, please."

"Would you like me to call Ms. Martinelli? To rearrange your dinner plans?"

"No, thank you."

"You won't be following Stark?"

"To come back with the body? No, no." Her lips curled into a very faint smile. "It's not necessary. I shall allow him the dignity of his choice. President Truman may want to be in the loop. I'm sure they're going to give us trouble about where to place him."

"Arlington?" Peggy rose from her seat when Huff released her, following the secretary out the door. The normally bustling office space was somber and quiet.

"Most likely. Not if I can help it."

"Wouldn't that be the most appropriate place, ma'am?"

"Not by far, at least not if Rogers had wishes to respect. His mother is buried in Holy Cross." Huff was scribbling notes in shorthand as she followed Peggy through the office. "That'll be in East Flatbush." She was familiar with the spot, having paid her respects early on after she settled in New York. "I don't know the number off-hand but I'm sure the operator can connect you. And we'll need to get in touch with Rebecca Barnes, he may not been her brother by blood but she was his family."

"Mr. Stark, ma'am?"

"Yes, I'm sorry. Ring him up, I just... I need a breath of fresh air. I'll call the Colonel, see if he can help with transport." She placed her feet very deliberately on each step up to the surface, emerging from the false munitions bunker into the bright mid-morning sun.

***

They decided that it would be best to keep the body well iced during transport. Peggy spent long hours in the secure radio room at Howard's estate with Jarvis to make arrangements and attempt to formulate the best plan of attack on the subject of where Steve would finally be interred. Everyone involved had agreed that it would be best to hold off on preparing the remains or embalming, also agreed upon was a trusted doctor who would examine them and take tissue and fluid samples for study. The doctor made it clear that it would be best if there were no chance that the samples be contaminated or compromised. The team that was being put together wouldn't be attempting to recreate the serum but studying things like physical properties to try and determine what exactly had been changed or enhanced. Trying to duplicate Erskine's work was dangerous, but studying the effects to attempt to create new vaccines and medications and treatments was reasonable. It made her absolutely ill. She'd fought tooth and nail to keep the exact same thing from happening to the last remaining vial of Steve's blood. She found that she couldn't resist the pressure coming from above her head, not just from the people and agencies that initially made Rebirth possible, but from the Allies as well. Much had happened in the year since she'd learned of the existence of that vial of blood. Howard had changed quite a bit, tempered by all that they'd been through and distancing himself from Rebirth as a whole even while he continued to fund and occasionally participate in the search, focusing more on his own business and taking a step back from a direct role in the directing of SHIELD. The team of scientists and doctors that SHIELD had managed to recruit from every corner of the globe were people that Peggy had personally vetted and trusted. No one was looking to profit, no one would profit. No more super soldiers would be made. It was pure research and it would be limited to the very small samples that they'd agreed were appropriate. They would be forced to make every last cell on every last microscope slide matter, they wouldn't be given the opportunity to use Steve any further than was necessary, any further than she was being forced to.

"It's remarkable, Peg, it really is." What was remarkable was the clarity of the transmission over such a long distance. What was remarkable was the odd level of cooperation that they were getting from the Russians. All of the agents who had followed Stark were on high alert, keeping their eyes peeled for Red Room agents or anyone else who might have an inkling to try something unsavory. Peggy thanked Jarvis when he set a fragrant bowl of Anna's goulash down on the table at her elbow. Her stomach rumbled in response to the scent but she couldn't bring herself to do much more than play with her fork. "I can't believe the body's still intact, all that time in the elements..."

Howard trailed off, leaving the thought unfinished. They'd found him in on the floor beside the pilot's chair. The radio in the cockpit had still been switched on. The glass embedded in his uniform had suggested that he'd been sitting in the pilot's seat when the impact with the water happened. Peggy played and replayed the last moments of his life in her head, how he'd been speaking and then there was only static. How it had been such a simple, undramatic event on her end. He was there and then he wasn't. Her imagination now conjured images of shattering glass and rushing water. Her body ached in sympathy of the pain he must have felt. She wished with her whole being that he'd been rendered unconscious or died instantly. That he'd been spared freezing or drowning. Her wishes were dashed to hell and back when Howard described how they'd found him, how the theory was that he'd miraculously survived, how he may have been trying to find a way out. The position he'd been in couldn't have been from the force of the impact. He would have had to make a conscious decision to get out of the chair, maybe trying to take cover or get away. It had been evident that the aircraft had only partially submerged from the position it was found in and the water and ice levels within. It was hard to tell anything for sure, to be truthful. The landscape of the area the Valkyrie was found in was constantly changing, forged anew by water and ice and wind. It didn't surprise Peggy that they'd failed to locate it by air or sea on their searches for that reason.

Howard didn't need to finish his thought. She knew what it would be as she listened to the subtly crackling air between them: what if they'd looked harder? Faster? What if they'd found him? What if he truly hadn't succumbed to injury and cold and water for some time? Had he tried to get a signal out? Had he failed? Had they missed it?

Might he have lived?

Might he have survived?

How different would things have gone? Not just for them, not just for personal reasons. For the Allied cause.

For Steve.

"Just get him home."

"Of course." She was about to bid him good night. "I'm not gonna spare any expense on this, Peg."

"Please don't turn this into a spectacle, Howard. It's not fair."

"The man was a national icon. A hero."

"He was a kid from Brooklyn. The boys are coming in from the field for the services. The Barnes family has asked to be involved in making arrangements. We're not going to turn this into a three-ringed circus."

"I'm payin' for it, at least."

"Whatever you want. As long as it's not something Steve would find preposterous. Just... get home quickly."

"We should be in port in the next day'r so."

"I shall have the team on stand-by. Goodnight, Howard."

"Night, Peg."

Peggy forced herself to eat the meal Jarvis had served her, knowing she needed the nourishment and not wanting to offend Anna. She padded into the kitchen and washed her dishes. Jarvis appeared in the most ridiculous looking striped bathrobe Peggy had ever seen when the kettle whistled. He set two teacups down and rummaged for sachets.

"Is everything alright, Ms. Carter?"

She looked down into the little vortex the water made as it poured into her cup. "As alright as it can be." She sipped her tea quietly, taking comfort in Jarvis' physical presence and his unobtrusive manner. He extended his hand toward her, covering hers lightly.

"Feels a bit like the Blitzkrieg Button all over again." Peggy laughed without mirth.

"I shan't be hiding anything in the walls this time."

***

Peggy eyed the over-sized steel box with it's heavy padlock as dock workers moved it from the ship to the waiting truck. She listened to the odd comment about how it was cold to the touch, about the condensation forming on the outside, theories on what was contained therein. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as she rode in the back of the car, following the truck to Bellevue Hospital through the city streets.

"You listenin'?" She shook herself and tried to focus on what Howard was saying beside her. "They know we're comin', right?"

"Yes, I spoke to Gonzales this morning. They're ready and waiting. The mortuary is on lockdown. They'd like to handle this as quickly and quietly as we do, get back to normal operations as soon as they can."

"How'd ya get Truman to back off?" Peggy just smiled. She'd called in several favors and then handed the phone off to Barnes' mother on one occasion.  "Well, whatever ya did, it sure was effective."

"Indeed. They've agreed to keep things very low-key. No motorcade or flock of dignitaries. The services will be small."

"How're we handlin' the public end? People deserve t'know."

"After. He was found and returned, interred after a private ceremony in his family plot." There wasn't actually a family plot. Evidently Steve had just barely pulled together the funds to bury his mother. Howard had arranged the purchase of the space immediately beside her, not technically a plot, but a wide enough space that wouldn't upset the rest of the row or those in front or behind. There was a plaque in the same cemetery for Barnes, though nothing was buried below. She'd visited it with Rebecca while arrangements were being made. None of it felt right, but it did give her family some small sense of closure to have a place to visit. "No one outside of the SSR and the Howlers knew him as Steve Rogers. He'll be undisturbed."

"Sounds good."

“We’re burying Steve, not Captain America.”

They waited until they were called in by the physician that would be handling the examination. His uniform had been removed, just his broad, bare shoulders visible above the sheet over him. Peggy and Howard signed off on the formalities of identification. They would compare his fingerprints to the card on record in his file just to be completely certain, cross all T's and dot all I's. They'd leave no room for error where Captain America was concerned.

The doctor stepped away, Howard following behind to give Peggy a moment alone.

"Hello again, darling." His hair was a mess, stuck together and knotted as it usually was when he pulled off his helmet. She reached out to smooth it away from his forehead, back and to the left as he always did, stopping herself before she touched him.

She didn't want this.

She wanted to remember the warmth of his skin and the thrum of his heart and the softness of his lips and the vibrancy of his smile.

The sunrise and the vial of blood and the Brooklyn Bridge had been enough for her.

She didn't want eyelashes resting against blue-tinted skin. She didn't want a sterile room filled with steel and tile and lights that were too bright.

She'd said her goodbyes. She didn't need more.

Peggy left the mortuary when her part was finished, _Director Carter's_ signature in all the appropriate places. She took the train uptown to meet Angie at the apartment she'd taken up in the Theater District.

Angie opened her door with a bright smile and a warm hug, "C'mon, English. Tell me all about it."

***

Sousa didn't mind working late. He actually preferred it most nights if he was working on a tricky case. He had a knack for spotting faces in crowds and picking out the odd disguise. That usually meant that when there were undercover operatives involved that he would come into the office to find his desk stacked high with surveillance photographs and dossiers. Working late afforded him the peace and quiet of an empty office, room to spread out his files and photos and notes out across the conference table.

He sighed and stretched and rubbed his eyes. That couldn't have been the right time. He compared his watch to the clock on the wall. There was no way he'd been sitting there for that long, but sure enough, it was two in the morning. No wonder his eyes felt like they were on fire. He pushed his chair back away from the table. He had to walk away from this thing for a few minutes. It wouldn't do anyone any good if he burned himself out. There'd been something fishy going on with the whole _finding Captain America_ deal, that much was perfectly clear. It went too smoothly. And what had the Russians been doing that far out drilling for oil? It just didn't add up. After Leviathan and discovering what they now knew was called the Red Room Academy, SHIELD was being cautious. He couldn't fault them for it. But he also couldn't help but wonder if the sheer number of photographs that had been handed to him and the number of pages on every person they'd encountered had been entirely necessary?

His work had at least produced some results: He'd spotted the same man in a number of the photographs, though not a single dossier that seemed to belong to him. He was tall and broad. Dark hair that looked like a regulation cut beginning to get just on the side of too long. His posture is what really drew Sousa's attention, everything about it seemed predatory. That and the fact that he seemed to be as much of an expert in avoiding being photographed in any identifying manner as Carter was on an undercover op.

He took a walk to the locker room and stripped out of his trousers, sitting down on the bench in his shorts and shirtsleeves to take his prosthetic off. "Shit." He dug the heel of his palm into his flesh, trying to rub out the pins and needles after having worn it all day and been up on his feet for much of it. He was starting to get blisters, the joining socket chafing against his skin. Being a few pounds lighter looked great on his waistline but felt like hell with the change in the fit of his leg. Government pay wasn't as good as it should be, especially when you considered the type of work the people at SHIELD did, so rather than seize the opportunity to get a new prosthetic, he'd have to gain the weight back. Maybe he'd take Manelli up on that offer to train at the boxing gym together.

Sousa dug through his go-bag for a fresh leg-cover and a bandage to fill out the extra space with. "Goddamnit."

The phone was ringing.

Not just any phone

 _The_ phone.

And there wasn't a chance in hell he was getting back into the office fast enough to answer it, even if he went just as he was. The world would just have to not end for a few minutes longer while he put himself back together.

He was pretty sure he set a new personal record doing just that, and all to no avail. No sooner did he reach out to grab the receiver, the phone stopped ringing. He let out a sound of frustration and plopped down in Carter's chair, waiting for whomever was on the other end of the line to try again. Several agonizingly long minutes passed. He knew the moment he decided to get up, the phone would ring again. Sure enough, it did. "SHIELD. You've got Sousa."

"Where is Director Carter?" The man on the line sounded winded, distressed.

"What's the emergency, sir?"

"Goddamnit, man, I need to speak to Carter!"

"She can't come to the phone at the moment."

" _Fucking Christ!_ Whoever the fuck you are, get her down here, _now_."

"I can't do anything for ya if ya can't tell me who and where ya are." Maybe it was the obscene hour. Maybe it was the burning pain in his leg. Maybe it was the guy's attitude. Sousa's patience was wearing thin.

"It's _Rogers_. He's not dead."

"What?"

"Rogers is alive and Carter needs to get down to Bellevue _now_."

"Slow down. Tell me exactly what's going on." Sousa fumbled for a pen from the coffee mug on Carter's desk and pulled a notepad toward him.

***

They'd decided the best way to get this done was to let the body warm up slowly, to come to room temperature, or at least close enough to it, before they started the internal exam and attempting to collect whatever tissue and fluid samples they could.

The lead physician took a steadying breath and adjusted his grip on the scalpel. This whole thing was entirely too surreal. He cringed at the fleeting thought that Rogers' cheeks looked just the slightest bit rosy, like he might just take a breath. It wasn't possible, of course. It had been a long, long time. He'd been submerged and frozen. The preservation really was remarkable, though, an initial superficial examination revealed at least that much. Could Erskine's serum have had an effect on postmortem conditions as well? He did look peaceful, at least, and from what he understood about the man, Rogers deserved it.

"Alright." He laid a gloved hand against the cool chest, scalpel hovering over the shoulder opposite. "Turn on the recorder, I'll dictate as I go."

"Yes, sir."

"The subject is a white male, approximately twenty five to thirty years of age, tentatively identified as Steve Rogers, also known as Captain America. Subject appears to be healthy with signs of minor trauma to the torso and face already noted in initial external examination..." While the body warmed, bruising most likely a result of the impact of water and debris from the aircraft's window had become evident. It was no where near as severe as it should have been, though it was clear that the serum had made Rogers at least slightly more resilient than the average man, it was also well documented that he tended not to report injury unless it was life threatening or a member of his team reported it without his knowledge. Some of the injuries to his face and gut appeared to have been from a hand-to-hand fight. Split lip, a bruise or two that looked like they'd fit a boot like a puzzle piece. The physician pressed the blade down to make the first incision, bright red blood welled up around the precise cut. It wasn't usual, but he supposed nothing really was usual about this particular case. Didn't make the sight any less unnerving. He made a note of the anomaly and prepared to continue.

"Wait." He put the scalpel back down on the table. It was barely a surface cut, a nick, really. He pressed a square of gauze to the cut, fingers firm against the shapely shoulder. "Can't hurt to go through the external once more, right?"

"Yes, sir." His assistant seemed to be unnerved as well, beads of sweat breaking out over his brow. The physician went over the exam methodically, starting with the limbs and moving inward.

"...some bruising around the orbital cavity showing signs of healing." He moved the eyelid up while his assistant adjusted the light to accommodate their task. "No petechiae obvious in the eye." The pupil contracted in apparent response, widening the swath of crystal-clear blue around it. The physician looked up at his assistant who had gone quite pale. He shoved the light away. The pupil expanded. He pulled the light back. It contracted. "Oh my god." The assistant crossed himself and backed away.

It had been a flurry of urgent motion after that. The emergency room doctors from downstairs launched into action, even with the dazed and confused look on each of their faces--disbelief that a man who'd been effectively frozen, believed dead for _two years_ could possibly be in need of their assistance.

He was bundled into the warmest blankets the hospital had, hot water bottles tucked between the folds, until he looked something like a great fluffy _bœuf en croûte_ with a face. They fixed an oxygen mask on him and a tube down his throat to keep him open and aspirate whatever water or fluid might be in his chest and ran through a slew of tests to see if he was responsive--squirting icy water in his ear and lifting his eyelids and moving his head back and forth to track the movement of his eyes, shouting at him, jabbing the sole of his foot with the cap of a pen, lifting his arm and dropping it to see if he smacked himself in the face. Responses were minimal at best. His heartbeat was impossibly slow and faint but it was there all the same and much better after his lungs were cleared. The oxygen was taking care of his shallow breathing, chest not even really visibly rising and falling.

Over the course of the next few hours, he continued to improve. Breathing deeper, heartbeat stronger, responding to stimulus physically even if he was refusing to open his eyes and tell them all he was okay.

When the excitement had calmed and there was a pair of police officers guarding the door to the room and an orderly and a nurse waiting with bated breath at the bedside, it was time to make the call. The physician wondered if he would be believed or Director Carter would think the whole thing was some exceptionally cruel joke.

***

It would be a few days, that was what they'd said. So Peggy took up her space at the New York office, sitting in the desk that was once Dooley's in the rooms that used to house the SSR and now belonged to SHIELD. She'd return to Camp Leigh when it was all over. There were plenty of new recruits that needed to be trained up and she thought she might enjoy taking her mind off of things at the shooting range. Until then, she stayed at her modest flat in Brooklyn, commuting back and forth across the bridge each day like she had in the last days of the SSR and the first days of SHIELD. She did miss her flat and how it very much felt like home in ways that the officers' quarters at the camp just never did.

She wasn't sleeping much. She suspected that it had something to do with the stress of it all. So when it took several heartbeats to swim up out of the depths of slumber and recognize the shrill ringing of the telephone, it surprised her. She swung her feet out over the edge of the bed and stumbled toward the desk to answer. "Carter."

"Peggy!"

"Daniel?" She rubbed her eyes and picked her watch up off the desktop, squinting at the face in the pale light filtering in through the curtains. "What's the matter? Are you hurt?" She couldn't imagine what he'd be calling for at this hour short of being arrested or hospitalized.

"No, no, I'm fine. How quick can ya get dressed?"

"Excuse me?"

"You need to get over here, to Manhattan, fast. I already called the cab company, they're sendin' a car out to ya now."

"Why? What's happened?"

"I'm not sure it's somethin' I should say over the phone."

"Did we get a call on the secure line?"

"Yeah, but, it's not exactly a mission." Peggy'd had enough of being jerked around. She wanted to go back to bed if there wasn't anything urgent going on. "Y'sittin' down?"

She plopped down into her desk chair. "Yes. Now will you tell me what the bloody hell is going on?"

"It's Rogers."

"What about him?" He was dead. He wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't getting into trouble or jumping out of planes or running into live fire. Whatever it was, it could wait. Her gut twisted all the same as it seemed wont to do since this entire debacle started.

"Peggy, he's not dead." She felt anger flare up inside of her, licking up her spine and burning the back of her throat. She slammed the phone back down into the cradle. After a beat the phone rang again. "Peggy, _please_. I wouldn't do that to you. You need to get down to Bellevue now." He was quiet for a moment. "Do you want someone to meet you there?"

"No." She began to untie the silk scarf from her head and stopped. If Daniel had already called a cab for her she wouldn't have time to actually make herself presentable. "Will they be expecting me?"

"Yeah, yeah, they are. Carter, I swear on my life, I am one-hundred-percent serious. I just got off the phone with the doc."

She threw on the slacks and blouse she'd set out for the morning, grabbed her bag and took the steps downstairs two at a time when the driver rang her bell. She watched Brooklyn and the East River and the Lower East Side of Manhattan slip past in a glittering scheme of street lamps and stars and the odd lit window as they hurtled toward the hospital. Evidently the cabby had been informed that the situation was urgent. Peggy was convinced that she'd arrive at the hospital to find Sousa lying in the Emergency Room, seriously concussed. It was the only thing that could explain the things he'd said to her. He wasn't thinking straight. He was loopy and telling her what he believed, in his injured and altered state of mind, that she wanted or needed to hear. He didn't seem to understand how truly painful, how downright sickening, it was to hear.

He was gone. He had been gone for two years. She had listened to the last things that he'd ever said aloud to any living person. They'd been foolish, ignoring the situation at hand, pretending that it wasn't happening.

The driver eyed her suspiciously when she laughed, manic and exhausted. If Steve was alive then she'd have to give him a good talking to. He was very late for their date.

The nurse sitting behind the reception desk looked about as weary as Peggy felt. "I'm Margaret Carter--Director Carter. I was told--" The nurse's eyes grew wide and she jumped up out of her seat, abandoning her post to direct Peggy to where she needed to be. She was led to a quiet wing, noting the presence of two police officers hovering near a door at the end of the ward, a third walking up and down the corridor casually. The physician who was meant to lead the team that was taking care of Captain Rogers' remains came out of the room that was being guarded with a harried look.

"Director! Finally!"

"What's the problem? Why am I up here?"

He started to speak, closed his mouth, opened it once more and sighed. "The only thing that I can say is see for yourself." He gestured toward the door. Peggy felt like she was swimming through thick syrup, like it was filling her lungs and impeding her stride. She walked to the threshold of the private room and stopped. Her stomach lurched. She put a hand to her mouth, unsure if she opened it to speak that the contents of her gut would stay where they were. The physician began to tell her what had transpired. How everyone else was in as much of a state of disbelief as she must be. Why exactly he was so thoroughly bundled. Why he was receiving oxygen. Why his face looked like he'd been in a fight when it had not before. That he was responsive even if he was not yet conscious. "I'm going to heavily stress _yet_. I think anything is possible at this point. I'd like to bring in an associate to continue his care, though. My expertise is really in research..."

Peggy just nodded in agreement with whatever he was saying. "Who are they?" She indicated the nurse and the orderly, as if it wasn't obvious. The young woman was busy tucking a fresh water bottle down into the folds of the pile of blankets around Steve's motionless form. The orderly was a brick wall of a man who Peggy imagined would have to duck to get through the door.

"He's on loan from the psych ward, actually."

"Why is that necessary?"

"If the Captain wakes, if he's disoriented... John is strong. He'll be able to handle Rogers if necessary." What was that supposed to mean?

Peggy didn't quite absorb all of what the physician and his assistant told her, but she got the gist: _Steve was alive._

It was completely impossible, of course. She was dreaming. She shouldn't have indulged in that Schnapps before bed. It was doing wicked things to her imagination.

All the same, she waved them all off--the hospital staff, the police officers guarding the door so closely. She promised to holler if she--or Steve--required any of their presence, agreed that the nurse might make regular checks through the night. She settled into the chair against the wall, watching the steady, if not deep, rise and fall of Steve's chest beneath the blankets.

At some point, a nurse brought her a cup of tea and a blanket of her own. She napped briefly, unwilling to surrender to sleep, unwilling to miss the moment Steve opened his eyes if he was ever going to. As the sun came up and drenched the room in red-orange light, turning his hair into spun gold and making his darker brows and lashes stand out in even starker contrast against his sun-deprived skin, Peggy found her resolve wavering.

It had been two years. He had been dead, at least in all practical sense. She had grieved. She had moved on. Not... not with another man--she couldn't seem to find any other man that lived up to the bar Steve had set, and somehow she didn’t quite find herself missing or needing the presence of one.

It had been two years of learning and growing and coming more fully into herself. Two years off the battlefield. Two years of building new relationships.

Two years in which everything had changed.

And what had she and Steve ever really had? She wasn't entirely sure any more. She knew that she loved him. Loved him with every bit of herself that she could reasonably give. She was fairly certain that he loved her as well, though neither of them had ever plucked up the courage to say as much, the uncertainty of each passing day making them cautious. It had ended, it seemed, as quickly as it had begun. A whirlwind of pounding hearts and sweat and shrapnel and strategy and whispered promises neither was sure they could keep.

Peggy couldn't put a name to what exactly she was feeling as she watch the sun creep across the bed, the rays widening as they slowly cleared the skyline.

Anger.

Resentment.

Confusion.

Sadness.

Excitement.

Joy.

Betrayal.

Anticipation.

If he'd just given her his goddamned coordinates everything could have been different. Even if he'd still crashed where he did. They could have gone directly to him.

The nurse appeared with Howard and Daniel in tow sometime around what Peggy assumed was the change of shift.

"Shit." Howard's face went quite pale. He sat down hard on the arm of Peggy's chair, wide eyes fixed on Steve's unconscious form while the nurse checked his temperature and began to remove the hot water bottles from among the folds of the blanket cocoon. "Has he woken up yet?"

"No."

"Y’been here all night?"

"Yes." An orderly appeared with two chairs. Sousa thanked him graciously and eased himself down into the seat. "Are you alright?"

"I feel like I should be askin' you that." Peggy waved it off. "I'm fine. Nothin' I haven't dealt with before."

"What have you got there?" Howard moved to the seat on Sousa's opposite side. Peggy held her hand out her hand for the over-sized envelope in Daniel's hands.

"Photos from over at the crash site, the operation after that, the shipyard." Peggy leafed through them, taking note of the figure that was indicated on most of them with a red penciled arrow. "This guy is everywhere; never a face shot, though."

"Could they have known they were under surveillance?" She looked up from the photos at Howard. "What devices were you using?"

"The stealthy stuff. Pens, buttons, pair of experimental eyeglasses. Nothing obvious."

"Well, I suppose they could have anticipated it. Is he in the files? Known operative?"

Sousa shook his head. "Doesn't match anything."

Howard took a photo from Peggy's hands, studied it for a moment. "I don't recognize 'im. Don't remember seein' him either, over there or on the boat home."

"He doesn't show up in any photo that you're in. Probably avoided you." He jerked his chin toward Peggy, "You recognize him? From Leviathan or the Red Room? Any of the oh-eight-four missions?"

She studied the photos, the man's frame and carriage, the shape of him. She found something about him eerily familiar but all the same couldn't place it. "No, can't say that I do."

The three of them danced around the pink elephant in the room, keeping an eye a piece on it, trying to formulate a theory as to why they'd received such cooperation at the crash site and afterward, if their informant may have been compromised. Eventually, Howard decided he needed to leave, business in his research and development labs requiring his attention. "I'm a call away if you need me, Peg." They stood in the hall just outside the room, Howard looking furtively over her shoulder toward the bed. It didn't take a genius to tell that he wasn't dealing well with the entire affair. He needed time. Perhaps if Steve woke. "Jarvis, he's worried about ya too. Offered to come down here, keep ya company at the very least. Anna's cookin' up a storm, expects ya for dinner." Peggy smiled, she may take them up on the offer. "You'll let me know if there's any change, right?"

"Of course." He surprised her with his embrace, not normally so affectionate. He waved as he got into the elevator and disappeared.

Sousa waited for the nurse who'd come in to check over Steve's vitals for what seemed like the millionth time to leave before speaking up. "How are you really doin'? This must be... hard."

Peggy laughed soundlessly and sat down hard in her chair, picking at the pilling on the well-worn blanket she'd been provided with. "That's certainly one way to describe it."

"He's kinda intimindatin'. Even like this." She raised a brow, waiting for him to continue. "Y'see photos, them old posters for the USO... but y'don't really know what a...ah... what a _dreamboat_ the guy is until you see 'im in person." He let out a short, bitter chuckle. "No wonder ya never had eyes fer me." He grinned, slightly wounded but still in his amiable way.

"Steve is not the reason we never got together, Daniel. And I think I should be quite insulted. You know me well enough to realize that Steve and I..." Why was she explaining herself at all? "Steve and I were not together simply because I found him physically attractive. I liked him before the change. I liked who he was." She pursed her lips and crossed her arms. She left it unsaid that she’d found him more than attractive then as well.

"I know. I'm sorry. I was just teasing. Very poorly." He frowned down at his knees for a moment before his eyes tracked across to the envelope on the seat that Stark had abandoned. "Well, I've got a radio call set up with a couple of informants and an interview set up with Dugan and Sawyer--they were on site, helped direct everybody." He eased himself up out of his seat, arranged the envelope under his arm and his crutches around his forearms. He shifted his hips, a concerning sort of wince flashing across his face. "You gonna be alright, Carter?" Peggy nodded. "You gonna stay all night again?"

"Most likely." She bit her lip at how sappy she found herself sounding. "If he wakes, I don't want him to be alone."

"Y'could tell the Howlers." Knowledge that Steve wasn't dead wasn't being circulated yet. As far as most people knew, the funeral had simply been delayed. "I'm sure they'd stay with 'im."

"I may. I shall let you know if anything comes up or if I can think of who that man might be."

***

Sousa picked his way carefully down the hall grimacing as the fabric covering his leg rubbed painfully against raw skin and burst blisters. He waited impatiently at the elevator door, just wanting to get out of the building. He'd make a stop at home, clean himself up a little before heading back into the office. An orderly, tall and broad and dark-haired and upright, bustled out of the elevator doors when they opened. "Christ! Watch it!" The solidness of the man's left shoulder as it smacked into Sousa's right was incredible, nearly knocking him on his ass as the man pushed by.

"Sorry."

His voice was flat, more rote reaction than sincere apology, as if he made a habit of bumping into people. He brushed at the long sleeve of the undershirt beneath his bright, white scrubs as if he'd brushed against something that would leave dirt behind. He continued on his way down toward the end of the ward as the doors slipped closed and Sousa pushed the button for the ground floor. “Ass.”

***

Jarvis turned up just after dinner time. "Anna is very cross with you." He set a covered dish down on the tray table and pulled it across the room toward Peggy. "This isn't healthy, Peggy."

She could tell he was concerned. He usually stuck to _Ms. Carter_ , even after all of the time they'd spent together and the adventures they'd had. He seemed to save her given name for special occasions.

"I keep trying to leave. And I..." She looked toward the window, steeling herself against the tears that threatened to fall. She was done crying. "I can't."

"You'd be the first to know if there was any change."

"I know." He uncovered the dish, the smell of meatloaf and mashed potatoes and buttered spinach wafting toward her. He held a fork out to her, a no-nonsense look on his face. Her eyes flicked to Steve's figure. Sleeping. It was too upsetting to think of him as _unconscious_. No reaction to the smell of food.

Peggy told Jarvis about all of the happenings of the day. How they'd taken Steve for X-rays. How the doctor who was caring for him now came back with the developed films and showed her the places that showed bleeding that had stopped, faintly visible ruptures in organs that had somehow healed, cracked ribs and fingers and arms that looked years old. How he'd quizzed her about possible battle wounds, anything that could have occurred far prior to the crash. Nothing she could think of really matched up. Maybe a broken finger or toe, a cracked rib here and there. Those things happened when you were dealing with Steve Rogers and his willingness to run into hand-to-hand combat with HYDRA agents, jump out of planes, dive out of cars or off a motorbike. Nothing came to mind with the severity he described. It really only meant one thing: the severity of his injuries during the crash had been crippling. If he'd somehow retained consciousness, he'd have been in agony. It made the possibility that he'd tried to find a way out less likely. Made his position lying beside the pilot's seat more sensible.

But somehow, even _frozen_ , he'd largely healed.

Now that he was warm, the bruising on his face and body was fading at a steady rate. The split in his lip was already gone.

"Miss Martinelli called the house looking for you. She said she'd called both offices and your apartment to no avail. She sounded rather desperately concerned. I assured her you were fine. I didn't know what exactly you'd want her to know."

"I'll call her tonight."

"I suppose that means you're staying."

"They're worried about his muscle tone. They need him to wake up and eat something. His metabolism... He was always hungry, all the time. Never complained, though. Everyone was hungry. He just burned through everything so quickly. I used to save my chocolate rations for him. It's as if he was hibernating, metabolism slowed down a bit. Like a bear. Using up whatever little fat he had." She picked over the plate, eating slowly, feeling guilty. "But now that he's coming out of it, his body has started... eating itself. They can keep him hydrated intravenously, but that doesn't help much in terms of nourishment. He's losing tone too quickly. If he doesn't wake soon and start eating, they've discussed taking him into surgery, feeding him manually."

Jarvis looked about twelve shades of horrified. In spite of it, she knew she could continue to vent if she wanted to. He would help her shoulder the burden of all of the information she'd received quietly and steadily. He'd seen and heard just about as much as she had over the course of the War and the course of the last two years.

"I wonder if Erskine could have anticipated any of this."

He sat with her quietly, coaxing her toward leaving for home or coming to stay at Stark's house. "Perhaps with Miss Martinelli?" Jarvis raised a brow.

Peggy sighed and rubbed her face. "If there's no change by morning, I'll go home. I can't will him to wake any sooner than I could have willed him to find a safe landing site." The evening dragged on after Jarvis departed. An orderly poked his head into the room and left just as quickly, a flash of dark hair and white scrubs. Peggy shifted and fidgeted and picked at the biscuits Jarvis had left. She paced the room. Watched the nurse as she did her hourly check and hung a fresh intravenous bottle. Her frustration mounted.

Peggy perched on the edge of the bed. He was still so pale, though far less drawn looking now that he'd been getting plenty of fluids. She brushed his hair back with her fingers, touching him for the first time since she'd kissed him just before he'd jumped onto the Valkyrie. She looked down at the oxygen mask, the tube fixed in his throat, a wave of nausea washing over her. " _Wake up!_ "

She thought his eyes may have moved beneath the vaguely purpled lids. She'd probably imagined it.

Peggy slept soundly, dragged down into the darkness of slumber by sheer exhaustion. She woke to orangey-red light and the sound of panicked retching.

Angie's presence was a welcome distraction and comfort. She'd shown up quick as a flash when Peggy called her from the payphone outside the hospital. Peggy needed to step out, to take a breath of air that wasn't tainted with disinfectant, to look at something other than the four walls and Steve in the bed. Angie had dropped what she was doing--only laundry, apparently--and hopped in the first cab she could find. The two had walked up and down the block a dozen times while Peggy explained the situation. Angie listened quietly, a somber look on her face.

"So he's back?"

"Not exactly."

"But he's not dead."

"Correct."

"I don't understand how that's possible, Peg."

"I don't either." Peggy punched the button to the elevator, leaning into Angie when they stepped inside.

"Does this mean the two of ya're gonna be a thing again?"

Peggy laughed, "I'm not thinking that far ahead."

Angie skidded to a halt just a few feet away from the door to Steve's room. "Y'sure this is... I dunno, allowed? Isn't this all a big secret?"

Peggy squared her shoulders and looked Angie straight in the eye, "I don't care anymore. Unless you'd prefer not to."

"No, no. It's important to you." Angie stepped into the room, hovering near the door for a moment before stepping in. "I thought you said 'e was awake?"

"He was. They've sedated him." She described how he'd woken, panicking and choking, nearly ripping the IV line from his arm with shaking hands, scratching at his throat and pulling at his face. How wide and frightened his eyes had been. How they'd really needed that massive orderly to keep him in the bed and not hurt himself while Peggy tried desperately to calm him, trying to explain where he was and that he was safe. How incredibly strong he'd been even weakened as he was, how much of a fight he'd given the orderly and how his grip on her hand had been like vice until multiple doses of morphine had finally knocked him out. "They took the tube out, no more oxygen. He's doing quite well on his own now."

Angie wrapped her arms tightly around Peggy in an aggressively comforting hug. "I guess this means y'ain't comin' to openin' night, huh?"

Peggy pulled back and gave her a serious look. "I wouldn't miss your debut for the world."

"I understand, English. Really."

"Absolutely not. The boys are on their way. There's no need for me to be here. I made a promise and I intend to keep it." She tucked a curl behind Angie's ear. "Steve isn't the only important person in my life."

Angie's eyes lit up with childlike excitement. "You mean, _the_ boys. The Howling Commandos?" Yes, that was who she meant. They'd all flown, drove, or sailed in to attend what was supposed to have been the funeral service. Now that Steve had made progress and had been declared _out of the woods_ by his doctors, Peggy had made the decision to inform them all why exactly those plans had been delayed. "That's so... so... exciting!" She beamed. "Y'think I could meet 'em?"

***

It had been a difficult decision, but ultimately, Peggy could do nothing to hurry along or help Steve's recovery.

She felt smothered by the side glances and snickers the men in the office--especially those who were still around from the days of the SSR--thought she didn't hear.

Ultimately, Angie had been the one to encourage her to go.

"English," she'd said, "You need to do what's best for you. I'd rather have you in that front row every night and at my kitchen table for breakfast every morning, but you've gotta get away."

And that was how she found herself back at Camp Leigh. The atmosphere was different there. It didn't feel like home the way New York did, but it felt freer, like a massive weight was off of her shoulders. The boys phoned her with regular updates. Steve was continuing to make rapid progress. He'd taken the news that two years had gone by with surprising stride, at least outwardly. His body was filling out again quickly now that he was being properly nourished and was able to get up out of bed. He asked repeatedly if Peggy had really been there when he woke, seemingly unable to believe it. Another week put him out of the hospital completely. The Barnes family, after the initial shock, had taken him in while a SHIELD liaison helped to find him his own place to live. The government was going to buy Steve a decent apartment or several people would be raising utmost hell.

It was a slow period. No missions aside from the continued investigation into the real purpose of that Russian drilling team and how they’d managed to randomly stumble across the crash site and decide to investigate. Most new recruits had been placed for training and were being taken care of. Peggy took it upon herself to completely reorganize the records room for want of something to do to keep her mind and hands occupied at a useful task other than emptying clips of ammunition at the range.

She climbed up the ladder to reach the top shelf, stack of files in her arm to put in the appropriate place. She pressed her foot against the corner of a shelf and pushed off, sending the ladder with her on it rolling down the line toward the next section, the key on a braided lanyard around her wrist clinking and clacking against the shelf as she flew. The door to the room opened and closed quietly. "I was quite serious, Ms. Huff, there's no need for you to fetch me anything from the Mess." She stretched her arm out, prying apart two file folders on a high shelf to shove a thicker third one between them. "If you run into Jack on your lunch hour, please do tell him that I would be very pleased if he bothered to learn the alphabet. I'm tired of not being able to find anything he was last to touch." She wobbled and stretched and jerked her hips sharply to the side to make the ladder slide just a fraction farther over. The folder slid into place. "If he can't do it himself then I shall be forced to hire him a personal file clerk and since there's no room in the budget for it, it'll have to come out of his salary."

Someone behind her snickered.

It most certainly was not Ms. Huff.

Peggy climbed carefully down the ladder, cradling the stack of files in her arm. She placed them down on the long, low cabinets running the middle of the room and took a deep breath before she looked up.

He was looking at her with a bashfully ducked head, up through his eyelashes, with a wide smile on his face. He held his cap in his hands, fidgeting with it.

He looked utterly out of place. She attributed it to the fact that she'd never seen him out of some kind of uniform rather than the fact that she’d believed him dead. Whether it was the training drab, khaki, his crisp dress, that ridiculous set of blue tights, the fatigues he'd stolen, or the final Captain America suit--all of it was some kind of uniform or symbol, either designed to make him one of many in a huge working machine or to make him stand out and strike fear in the enemy. All manufactured and carefully put together.

This Steve was more...

She didn't know how to describe it.

He always did look lovely in blue, that didn't change with the navy and white plaid shirt he wore. His brown leather jacket was more an item of style and comfort than necessity or function. It looked soft as butter, well worn. She supposed the pants were a bit like a uniform, but the color was just off enough to disrupt the image.

He looked at her for a long moment. "Yer late."

She was taken back by the statement, unsure how to answer.

"We had a date fer the twenty-fourth. A week, next Saturday. Eight o'clock on the dot. That's what you said. Today's the twenty-fifth and yer still hangin' around the office instead'a gettin' ready to meet me at the club."

"Plus two years. I'd say you're still the late party." She set her jaw and planted her feet, conflicting urges to run to him or run away battling in her chest. "Tried to get you a ride. You wouldn't take it." Peggy imagined that if she reached out to touch him, he would break apart like he was made of a million tiny fireflies, the way he was in her dreams when it was close to waking and she tried to make it last. She made her way slowly around the island of cabinets. He watched her, the slightest tremor of nervousness in his fingers as he twisted his cap and shoved it into his jacket pocket. She smoothed the wide box pleat in the front of her skirt trying to look as casual as she did not feel. "Who brought you here?"

"Ah, Dum did. He said y’weren't in New York. Not anymore, but that ya had been." He smiled, a little sad, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. "Said you were runnin' the show from here. We drove down from the city real early this mornin'. Stopped to clean up a little, have breakfast... work up the nerve."

Of course Dugan would have. Of course.

Peggy glanced toward the door, conscious that the first wave of agents returning from their lunch hour would soon flow back down into the office. She reached out tentatively and smoothed his shirt collar against his jacket. She looked up at him, made to feel small and fragile under his earnest gaze. "How are you feeling?"

He huffed an amused breath out of his nose. "Taller." Peggy rolled her eyes. It was certainly the same Steve. "I'm... okay. I think. I've been stayin' with Bucky's family. On the couch, ya know. Mrs. Barnes, she offered his bed. Bec's livin' at some ladies' boarding house or hotel or something, so I'd have the room t'myself. She had Ma's steamer in the basement, my stuff from our apartment was in it. Not much, but it was nice to have. I couldn't stay in the room. It was too much. Stark sent over a bunch'a clothes with a note sayin' he didn't want me going 'round naked." He laughed and gestured to himself. He was like a magnet, her body moving closer to his of it's own will. "There's, ah, this guy? Isadore. Gabe introduced us, said he was a Howler." Peggy nodded, she was familiar with Izzy Cohen. "He lives in Brooklyn, gonna help me find a place." He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and furrowed his brow. "I love Mrs. Barnes but I can't... I can't stay there." His cheeks glowed with blush, his chin quivered his eyes filled with tears. "Peggy, say somethin', please?"

"Why did you come here?"

He closed the gap between them, "I came here fer _you_." His arms were around her in a moment. She gasped in surprise, her hands caught between their bodies as he held her tight enough to be nearly uncomfortable. She melted into him in spite of herself, her body and soul responding to the familiar and long-desired feel of his warmth and bulk and strength. He caught her lips in his, his mouth forceful and hot and wet. She reciprocated in kind, opening herself to him, breathing his breath, pushing back.

It would have been very easy to simply be lost in the moment. Desire and exhilaration welled up inside her, rolling up from her toes and filling her chest.

She struggled against him, wrenching herself out of his arms, "No." He gaped at her, shocked and upset.

"Peggy, I--" She pushed him back. His heel bumped solidly against the door, rattling the frosted glass window in its frame.

"Two years, Steve! Two years. You were _dead_. You were gone. There was still a war to fight. There were still men and women dying all around us. We-- _I_ had to move on. I didn't have time to be sad or think about what could have been."

"I--"

"No. You don't get to speak yet." His eyes widened, his open mouth snapped shut. "My entire life has changed. Where I live, who I associate with, who I love, what I do. I've had to fight my way through the _Captain America's liaison_ jokes and sit through that insufferable Betty Carver character on that _stupid_ radio show that sounds... sounds _nothing_ like you. I've gone from taking lunch orders to being a wanted fugitive to... to... to running an agency. You don't get to just come here for me. You don't get to just... to just walk back into my life as if those two years never happened." She bit down on her bottom lip, her face contorting with the effort of keeping her cool. "I buried you, Steve. I laid you to rest. I tucked you away and let myself be... be whole again. Be happy again. Be... not lonely." He looked slightly bewildered. She closed her eyes, drawing in a sharp breath and exhaling.

"Director Carter? Is everything alright?" Miss Huff's silhouette appeared in the window, she rapped lightly on the door with her knuckles.

"Yes, Margaret. Everything is fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, thank you."

Miss Huff moved away and came back, hesitant. "I'm right out here if you need anything, Director."

"Thank you." Peggy turned away from the door, away from Steve. She put her hands down on the cabinet island and looked down at the thick folders she had yet to file. She put a hand to her face, palm cool from resting against the metal of the cabinet, and ran it up through her hair. She stood up straight and squared her shoulders, moving back around the island. She looked to the shelves to pick up where she left off, trying to hook her fingers into something that felt like normalcy. Something that didn't feel like cubes from space and dead men coming back to life.

Steve stepped up to the cabinets, his face open and earnest. "Peggy, I dunno what to say. I feel like sorry innt enough. I'm... I--I'm still tryin'a make sense of it all m'self. I woke up and e’erybody was sayin' we won the war and I was safe and I was home and I didn't know _how_ I got there'n I knew... I _knew_ you were there. I knew it. I remember your face and I remember your hand." He brushed his fingers shyly against hers as she made a move to pick up one of the folders. "And I r'member your voice. When everythin' was dark and and cold and I felt like my body was on fire all the same'n I couldn't breathe--I remember your voice. Tellin' me you'll teach me how ta dance. T'not be late. Then..." Peggy kept her eyes on his hands, his callused fingers rough against her skin, not making any further move. "You tellin' me I was home and safe and it was time t'wake up. Tellin' me that New York was still there'n you were there and there were people y'wanted me'da meet. Sayin' you missed me and you hated me and y'loved me and callin' me _darling_ like you used to and I just wanted ta get back and be warm and breathe and see you while you were sayin' _darling_." Peggy drew in a shaky breath, her resolve wavering, feeling like every bit of herself was screaming out to just be held and be near him. "And I remember your voice and you yelling at me to wake up and I wanted to wake up for you because you sounded so... so _sad_. You should never be sad. Not on account'a me."

Peggy covered his hand with hers, bringing it up to brush her lips against his knuckles. She held their hands to her chest. "You could hear me?"

He nodded, "I just... I wanna fit in someplace, Peg. The whole world--it's changed so much. I feel like I don't fit anywhere. I don't... I don't have anything. A job, a home. I love Bucky's family like they were my own, but that's not a way to live. I don't... I don't even think I can say I own the clothes on my back, not really. Even when I had nothin', I could say I had that. The clothes on my back, the pencil in my hand, Bucky at my side. I want... I want a place in the world, Peg. I want a place with you. Yer th'only thing that makes'ny sense."

She couldn't imagine how it must have felt. To wake up after staring down death. To find yourself in a world that was no longer your own. To have nothing, because really, aside from the kindness of others, Steve would have been on the street. Peggy wouldn't have allowed that to happen, she'd been monitoring the situation as closely as she could without intervening, trying to allow him to find his own way. But what if things hadn’t happened the way they did? What if someone like Dooley was still in charge? Or Thompson? If SHIELD had never begun?

Would Steve be recovering in his own city? Would he have someplace to lay his head at night?

Would the Russians--or whomever else may have stumbled across him in a world where SHIELD and their informants didn’t exist--have taken him? Used him? Dissected him for their own study if they realized who and what they had at their disposal?

"Yer th'only person who... who really understands ev'rythin'. Who knows what we did. All a'us." He was looking at her like a thirsty man in a desert, his expression so strained she thought that his face might shatter. She reached out, stroking his cheek with her knuckles. He leaned into her touch. "I'm an ass, Peg. I shouldn'a come in here like that. You're as shook up by this whole damned thing as I am. I shouldn'... I shouldn't'a just expected y'ta be waiting around fer me, that ya'd wanna be kissed like that." He put his hand over hers, settling her palm against his cheek. "It's been a long, long time." His face shifted into a lopsided smile.

"I understand, Steve." She sniffled, trying to be as discreet about it as she could. "It hasn't _been_ two years for you. But I'm not the same person I was then, even if you are or you’re trying to be."

"I get it, if there's not a place fer me anymore. With you, I mean." He broke out into a grin and moved their hands away from his face. "A job'd be nice though. I'd look pretty silly sellin' papers now, n' I'm not sure I'kin get my old gig at _Timely_ back."

"I'm sure we can find a place for you." She smiled slyly, "Taking lunch orders, perhaps? A pretty thing like you would be a nice distraction in the office." They laughed. His eyes flicked down to his hand still clutched gently against her chest, his knuckles resting against the hollow at the base of her throat, and back up to her face. "There's still a place for you with me. I just--I'm not sure what that place is, exactly. I'm not sure when I'll figure that out, either."

It felt like an eternity stretched between them. The second hand of the clock over the door ticked loudly. The soft rustle of papers, tap of feet, ringing of phones, and quiet chatter of the office coming back to life beyond the door filtered toward them. Peggy took stock of him, so changed and so the same. Eyes still impossibly clear and blue. Lashes long and feminine. Brows bushy and dark. Hair silky and shiny. Skin too pale. Eyes too tired. Shoulders too slumped. Fingers still rough. Lips still obscene and bee-stung in that way that just begged for kissing and touching.

She rose up slowly on her toes, leaning forward across the cabinet, tilting her face just slightly up toward his. She raised a brow in silent inquiry. He met her in the middle, pressing his lips to hers, dry and soft. She tightened her grip on his hand, pulling him closer. He kissed across her mouth, peppering small pecks at the corners, catching her bottom lip between his. Her chest felt tight with longing as she started to pull away. "Steve, I--" He pivoted his body, easily seating himself on the top of the cabinet and swinging his legs around while he chased her lips with his. She couldn't help but laugh. "Always so dramatic."

He chuckled, low and rumbly, ignoring or unaware of the cap falling from his pocket. Peggy backed up, leaning against the ladder casually. He picked up a lock of hair from her shoulder, the curl seeming to coil around his fingers of its own accord. He dropped his hand to his side and looked away. "Sorry."

"Don't be."

"I want you, Peg. I want..." Color flared high in his cheeks. "I'm sorry. You said no." She couldn't deny it, she wanted him just as badly. Her stomach fluttered with a flock of angry butterflies. Her ears warmed with blush. Peggy lifted herself up onto the first rung of the ladder to meet him at eye level. He smoothed his hair back, down to the left in a precise stroke, like always, and looked down at his feet. She frowned.

"I'm sending mixed signals, aren't I?"

"Lil'bit."

She put her hands down on his shoulders thumbs pressing down into the muscle the way she remembered he liked. He closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. "I want you, too. I don't know what I want from you." He nodded. “Might we satisfy mutual wanting and slog through the rest later?”

He looked up through his lashes, “As long as I’m sloggin’ with you.”

Steve leaned in, slow, giving her time to change her mind. She smoothed her hands up, framing his face and running her fingers through the short, soft hairs at the back of his head.

Peggy kissed him open-mouthed. Their breath hot and damp, lips slick, she ran her tongue out over the even ridges of his bottom teeth, tasting him. His hands came to her waist, fingers running over the high waistband of her skirt, mussing the careful tuck of her blouse. His thumbs rubbed firmly against her ribs, skirting along the bottom edge of her brassiere.

He still knew the exact amount of pressure she liked. Where to put his hands. How to move his lips with hers. In the space of the minute that ticked away on the clock, she reminded herself dozens of times that those two long years hadn’t passed for him. That he was fresh from the battlefield. Fresh from their last kiss. Fresh from their plans for a date.

She hated him for it. Or at least, the resentment that bubbled up the back of her throat felt very much like hate--untouched by two years of chaos and struggle and learning to be not at war.

Her face contorted and her eyes burned with salt. She bit too hard. He yelped into her open mouth, muffled by their continued kissing. She gripped his hair too tight, pulled him against her too hard.

His hand moved down her flank, over her thigh, resting at her knee. It travelled back up, a ragged bit of nail catching on the cheap rayon over her leg, sending a run down to her toes feeling like a spider racing down the limb. He hitched her leg over his hip as she yanked his head back, effectively baring his throat. She traced the throbbing vein in his neck with her lips, breathing hard as he gripped her backside.

“Steve.”

He panted loudly, a rolling sound lazing it’s way up his throat, vibrating against her lips and tongue. She looked up at his flushed face and wild eyes.

“Huff, where the fuck are those files?”

“Excuse me, Agent Thompson?”

“The files that were on my desk, where are they?”

“Hey! Buddy, that’s no way to speak to a lady.” Dugan’s large frame filled the frosted window.

“Carter took, ‘em, I know it! Where’d she put ‘em?”

“ _Director_ Carter was in the process of putting them back where they belonged after she consulted several of them. It’s terribly hard to find vital information when files sit on someone’s desk for days at a time.”

Steve pressed his lips together and squeezed his eyes shut. His nostrils flared with the effort of keeping in the groan that welled up from his toes inside when she rolled her pelvis against his. “Peh--Peggy.” His voice was strained and his face and neck flared a shade darker.

“Agent Thompson! There is a private meeting going on in there!”

“I don’t really give a shit, Huff.”

“Hey!” Dugan must have shoved him, the shadow of his arm moved. His silhouette grew smaller like he took a step away from the door. “You talk t’yer mama with that mouth you scrawny creep?”

“Corporal, it’s really not necessary.”

“I want my goddamned files, I really don’t care if Carter is in there suckin’ Rogers’ face off--because _God knows_ that’s what you mean by private meetin’.”

“Christ, you squirrelly little shits never change, do ya? Think you wouldda learned yer damn lesson in Russia.”

Peggy reached above her head, grappling for purchase on the top rung of the ladder. They moved against each other, heat and friction just as tantalizing and sweet as it was in fleeting moments captured in the back seats of jeeps and utility closets at headquarters. The key on her wrist clattered against the wooden foothold. “Steve. _Steve_.” He looked up at her, dazed and hungry, taking a stumbling step back and releasing her leg.

She twisted and reached and wormed her fingers in the tight space between the two ceiling-height shelves, just catching the switch hidden there near the top. The ladder jerked to the side as the shelf slid back, a dim alcove flickering to life beyond.

“You agents and yer damned secret doors.” She snorted in amusement, remembering his apprehension that day in Brooklyn when this whole thing started, and hopped gracefully down from the ladder, catching his wrist and tugging him behind her. She yanked the “door” shut again, difficult to pull in its track laden with files as it was. The latch clicked, sealing them inside. She smirked conspiratorially and put a quieting finger against her lips as she used the key dangling from her wrist to call up the elevator they were standing in front of.

Steve was panting, his mouth in a vague, open smile. “What’s through here?”

“Things that don’t exist.” She pulled him inside the elevator, Thompson’s muffled griping filtering through the hidden passage as the elevator doors slid shut.

***

“They must have stepped into the director’s office.”

Dugan moved around the filing cabinets, toward the far wall. He bent to pick up a paper that seemed to have dropped from the files lying on top of the cabinets and shoved Steve’s cap in his back pocket as he rose. “This what yer lookin’ fer?” He raised a brow and gestured to the folders. Thompson glared, snatched them away, and stalked out into the main office.

Peggy’s secretary, Margaret-- _heh, Margaret Squared_ \--covered her mouth girlishly and held back a laugh. “They weren’t on his desk. They were all scattered about the conference room.” She fluttered her hands as she spoke. “He likes to think he runs the place.”

***

Things that didn’t exist.

Locked cases marked _0-84_.

Coded files.

Surveillance pictures of people who were meant to be dead walking around with everyone else.

Stark technology, developed for or at SHIELD, deemed too volatile or too dangerous.

A locked vault where the obelisk that turned people to ash and the Tesseract were hidden away.

Serums. Chemicals. Elements. All in cold storage.

Microscope slides with strange looking cells.

Lists upon lists of people who had strange abilities.

Weapons seized from HYDRA, from Leviathan.

Things no one was sure quite what to make of from some group called Department X, largely redacted files, hints at developing some kind of biologically linked technology.

Everything arranged in neat rows of painstakingly catalogued and reference-labeled metal shelving. Collecting dust. Slowly being forgotten. Fading into the realm of What If and Remember When.

And now, whatever it was that was happening between them.

The gate slid shut with a clang that made Peggy’s teeth chatter. She pulled Steve against her and punched blindly at the down button while his lips traversed across her throat. She groped at his shoulders, slipping her hands under the warm leather and pushing it down over his arms. He shook himself and the garment fell to the floor in a heap that he kicked away.

Steve radiated heat, though she was sure she was imagining it, as she swept her hands down over his flanks and around his back, following the firm line of his belt. He hunched forward, pulling her close and marking a wet trail down toward her chest. She splayed her hands over his back, feeling his muscles work as he sucked in breath, before she balled her fists in his shirt and undershirt to yank them up out of his waistband. She sighed, her hands remembering their way as she touched his skin.

Peggy luxuriated in the touch of his mouth and hands as the elevator crept down the shaft toward a basement that didn’t exist on plans for a munitions building that wasn’t full of what it should be in a spot that was against regulations in a camp that had been decommissioned.

She slipped her hands between their bodies, pressing the heel of her palm down into his crotch, jerking her shoulder back against the flow of his movement as he rubbed himself into her hands, his arousal more than evident in his crisp khaki pants. He whined, high-pitched and pitiable through his nose, his hands and mouth losing their determination.

The elevator doors slid open, the grate clattered as it followed.

Steve drew himself up, hips pressed forward to maintain desirable contact, and gathered her skirt up in his hands. The light wool folded and bunched, she laughed thinking of the curtains raising at Angie’s theater. He smiled down at her, lost and happy, thinking the laugh for him. His smile disappeared at the abrupt loss of her hands against him. She reached down, picking quickly away at the clips of her garters. She moved her hands up over her thighs, bumping his away and she wiggled her fingers up under the bottom edge of her girdle. She looked up at him expectantly and he moved his hands to his belt.

“Yeah?”

The doors slid closed once more.

“Yes.”

“But--” She knew what he meant. He’d just have to have the presence of mind to pull out. “Oh--okay. Yeah. Okay.” He blushed a violent red and nodded rapidly. His arms flew up, hands away from his belt. They crossed behind his head and gripped his shirt, pulling everything up and over in an awkward motion. He snorted, “That wasn’ as smooth as’t was in my head.” He struggled out of his shirt and undershirt, fiddling with the buttons on his cuffs with the entire mess bunched around his forearms. Finally successful, the shirts shared the same fate as his jacket. He put his hands up in surrender as Peggy made quick work of his belt and fly. His eyes fluttered closed and mouth dropped open when she circled her fingers around his hard cock, stroking firmly, his foreskin rolling up and down with the motion.

Peggy drew herself up onto her toes and pressed her lips close to his ear, “Touch yourself.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

His eyes opened just enough to watch her, his hands dropped down to his waist, taking up the same slow pace she started, while she reached up under her skirt once more and wiggled free of her panties. She turned slowly,  holding her skirt gathered up around the front of herself, and pressed her backside against him. She tipped her hips back and forth, making his hands and cock rub against the slippery rayon and firm elastic panel in the back of her girdle. She threw an arm up, hooking her elbow around his neck to pull him down. She turned her face to catch his lips in hers, open-mouthed and humid.

Peggy pushed her hips back, bending forward. She sighed and shivered as the head of Steve’s cock slid back and forth through her folds, running through curls and slick arousal. “ _Steve_.” He pushed in slowly, resting his face against the crook of her neck and draping his torso over hers. Rough hands gripped the backs of her thighs, pulling them apart as he rolled his hips slowly--so agonizingly slowly--back and forth.

In her dreams, when she did dream about him and them and what it would be like if they ever got this reunion, if they ever got that date, that dance, that night--it was varied, different. Sometimes they went crashing through her little kitchenette, dishes and utensils and her beat up copper bottomed tea kettle falling to the floor and disturbing the neighbors below. Sometimes they escaped to their car during the intermission at a picture and necked like teenagers in the backseat until the police came around and told them to get moving. Sometimes it was slow and sweet in a big plush bed in a hotel somewhere with billowing curtains and a soft night breeze and a moon so bright you didn’t need a light to see. Sometimes it was on a battlefield somewhere, in a trench with live fire whizzing by overhead and dirt raining down on them. This entire situation--the location, the conflicting feelings tumbling around in her head and her heart and her gut, _everything_ just felt off.

Off didn’t immediately mean _not good_.

Peggy pushed her behind back against him as his hips continued to move. Steve’s hands moved up over her hips and around the front, one broad palm pressed against her belly and the firmness of the girdle and the other slipping down between her legs to rub slow circles against her clitoris. He was grunting as he thrust into her, breathy and soft sounding.

“I--I tried.”

She covered his hand with hers, moving it faster. “Keep trying.” If he just kept at it, she was so close--

“No. The radio. I tried.”

“What?”

“After-- _unff_ \--after I crashed. I tried. There was… there w’s a signal, but i’was weak.”

She stilled their hands. “We didn’t get a signal.”

His hips stopped. She pressed her legs together as she leaned against the wall, her body confused by the sudden loss of him. “But I heard you. I heard Stark.”

She turned in the small space the wall and his body allowed her. “That’s impossible.”

“It had t’be him.” His face scrunched in distress and he fingered the collar of her blouse before running his hand down, popping buttons open casually between finger and thumb. His hand smoothed back up between her breasts and traced the edge of the brassiere.

Peggy put a hand on either side of his face. “No.” She gasped as he lifted her, his arms cradling her backside and hoisting her up off her feet. Her legs wrapped around his waist and she gripped his hair tightly. He yelped in surprise. She pressed her forehead to his and whispered, “We couldn’t find you.” She released his hair, linking her fingers at the back of his neck. He tipped his chin forward to catch her lips in his. He shifted her weight in his arms to grip himself, sliding back inside. His hand slapped against the wall to support them, his whole body moving to drive himself up. She rolled her hips back and forth in tandem with his, her heels pressed into his backside.

They panted when their lips parted for breath. “Some’un did.”

Peggy looked him square in the eye, her hips working harder, movements sharper. “If you’d just given me your _bloody coordinates_.”

He straightened up, pushed away from the wall, her weight in his arms adding to his momentum as he stumbled back. Twin grunts of discomfort echoed in the space as he crashed back against the opposite wall.

She tried her best to hide her surprise when he shifted his arms and her body dropped down, pushing him deeper. Linked at knee and elbow, they worked harder. Peggy’s heart threatened to pound out of her chest, the fast beating a contradiction to the slow path the bead of sweat was making from her temple to her jaw.

“Peg!” he croaked.

“Don’t you dare.” She was so close-- _so close_. She tensed her body, hugging herself closer to him. He pressed his cheek to hers, jaw clenched tight, breath whistling through gritted teeth. “Don’t… don’t stop-- _ah!_ \--hard...harder!” He held her close, gathered careful and tight in his arms, and dropped to his knees. The gears above them squealed and groaned against the abrupt impact. Her world tilted and her back hit the floor, “No! No--up--I--” The earth shifted again and she found herself upright, able to move the way she wanted. She shivered, her teeth chattering and hands shaking, coming apart as hard and fast as she rode him.

“Peg-Peg-Peg--” She continued to move, slowing, coming down, boneless and warm. “Peggy, I can’t…” She groaned, unlocking her limbs and carefully unseating herself, throbbing and sensitive. She rested her forehead against his shoulder, sticky with sweat and hot from exertion, wrapping her hand around his cock. He fisted his hands in her hair, sucking in air and shaking as hard as she still was, drops of white hitting his stomach and dripping down over her hand as she stoked.

Breath caught, they kissed fondly and slowly. He rolled back off his knees, plopping himself down on his behind unceremoniously.

He looked good. Skin flushed with color, lips wet and red, hair a mess, softening cock against his belly while he leaned back against the wall. He pushed his hair away from his sweaty forehead. He closed his eyes, chest rising and falling less rapidly.

“I was gonna die. Wh’was the point? Why waste the time? Resources? I was ready to die.” Moisture gathered in his lashes and rolled down over his cheeks in fat tears.

The comment hung in the air between them for a moment that stretched and gathered tension. “They’ll be wondering where I’ve got to. I’m sure Dugan will want to get back on the road.” Peggy picked up her discarded panties to clean her hand while he tucked himself away. She frowned down at the run in her stocking and unbuckled her shoes to remove the ruined hosiery. She watched out of the corner of her eye while he cleaned himself up with her, also ruined, underwear.

Peggy buttoned herself back up, tucking her blouse precisely into her skirt. Steve pulled his tee on and righted his shirt. She slipped back into her shoes while he combed his fingers through his hair.

“Peggy, you said… You said things are diff’ernt, who ya love, what ya want.” She shook the tangles out of her hair and balled her stockings together. She patted herself down uselessly, no pockets to speak of. Steve took the stockings from her hands gently and picked her panties up off the floor. Both items got tucked discreetly into his jacket pocket. Hidden away. Things that didn’t exist. “I missed my chance, didn’ I?” He stared down at his feet as she punched the button to send them back up to the records room.

“That’s for me to decide.” He nodded in agreement. They waited a beat when the doors slid open into the hidden alcove to ensure that no one was in the records room--the elevator was hidden for a reason after all. She used her key, slipping it into the lock on the back of the shelf-door to disengage the latch. It rolled open on its track and they stepped around the ladder in their way. “Tomorrow.”

“Stork? Eight on the dot?”

“Don’t be late.” She smiled to herself, blush creeping up the back of her neck with the realization that she was about to walk out into the bullpen with neither stockings nor underwear. The garters clips dangling from her girdle tickled her thighs. “No. I have plans.” She turned back toward him, hand on the doorknob. “The St. James, do you know it?”

He nodded, “The theater, right? Never been in it, though.”

“I’d like you to meet someone important.” She’d call Angie tonight, ask her to leave a pair of tickets at Will-Call. “Meet me there instead. We can…” She frowned.

“Talk. We’kin talk after. Go fer a walk. Grab a Coke somewhere.” He put his hand on his head and turned around once, looking down at the floor for his missing cap. “I love you Peg. But you’ve got two years on me. Your speed, yer direction.” He smiled softly.

There was a knock on the door, “Director?” Huff spoke quietly. “Is everything alright?”

Peggy opened it, “Yes, Miss Huff, everything is… fine. Or, going to be.”

Steve nodded in her direction, “Ma’am.”

Was it obvious?

The bullpen was largely empty. “Corporal Dugan challenged Agent Thompson to a bit of a shooting competition. Everyone’s gone to watch, abandoned their posts.” Steve chuckled. “Will Captain Rogers be working with us? I can prepare the appropriate paperwork, have it ready before you leave.”

Steve looked to Peggy, eyebrow raised. “If that’s alright with you, Director Carter.”

Peggy nodded and Huff smiled, turning to walk in the direction of her desk. “Oh! Miss Martinelli called. She said to let you know that only five more ladies now stand between herself and stardom? She very much promises that it’s simply the flu and not something the _phone company_ should look into.”

***

They were laughing.

Bright red mouth.

A bashful smile.

Bright blue eyes full of something that looked like longing.

They were sitting at a booth in the diner, drinking out of straws from glass bottles

The other woman left an hour earlier. She’d bustled past him, crinkling her nose at the cloud of cigarette smoke hanging in the air around him, and hailed a cab looking exhausted and happy.

He’d ditched the hospital garb and stolen something from the locker room.

His handlers wanted this done quietly. It was surprising, his last mission had been big and loud and drenched in flame, framed as an accident. He could remember the heat of it on his face as he slipped away. But this, evidently, was something that needed to be done inconspicuously.

He’d already gone well beyond the prescribed timeline. He’d told them he hadn’t had a fitting opportunity when they made contact.

Really, there was something gnawing at him, something he felt he should know about this man. He justified it to himself by deciding if he was important enough for a quiet kill then he should gather as much information as he could.

He followed them at a distance, hanging back and watching their shadowy figures as they stopped on the footpath over the water, illuminated by the light of the clear, high moon. Their conversation had turned to a much more serious tune since the other woman left them.

She was talking about something called Leviathan, someone called Dottie, a dangerous mission in... in Russia.

Operatives?

He’d wait. He’d figure it out.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> As before, title is from Aerosmith's [Love in an Elevator](https://youtu.be/h3Yrhv33Zb8).
> 
> The big Xmas tree in Rockefeller Center has been going up annually since '31, except for '32. Peggy drinks Amaretto Sours because Hayley Atwell said so.
> 
> Margaret Huff is Fury's personal secretary in _Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD #3 Vol 14_. Sousa refers to Dino Manelli, who first appears in _Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #1_ along with Izzy Cohen.
> 
> The Medical Examiner's office was established in NYC in 1918 and operated for a time out of Bellevue Hospital until it moved into its own facilities. Dr. Gonzales was the Chief ME from 1935-54. If SHIELD is bringing Steve's body back to New York, it would make sense, legally/logistically/logically that they would use the services they had on hand to some extent. There isn't anything to really suggest that SHIELD or the SSR had their own mortuary facilities or staff and I've kept the Army out of things for the most part to simplify matters.
> 
> The Army has been maintaining fingerprints as part of service records since 1905. It would be very simple to pull Steve's file and confirm his identity.
> 
> I'm not sure if it's specified in the MCU when exactly the Winter Soldier went active or when the arm is attached beyond the bits we get from Zola and from Bucky's memories, both convoluted vague at best (and clearly purposefully so). If I'm going by Brubaker's run, which is what I'm most familiar with, somewhere around #11/12 there's a bit where Steve gets a copy of the WS files. In it, the first mention of the project going active/being successful is in '54 under Department X after basically a decade of medical testing/experimenting, brainwashing, and programing. They send him out on a field test in November and then early in '55 he takes out a UN team and makes it look like an accidental fire. Clearly this piece is an alternate time line, so I bumped the operation up several years to suit my needs.
> 
> Sousa's prosthesis troubles are real issues that a friend of mine deals with and is not exaggerated, but in fact, pretty rose colored.
> 
> X-rays have been used in medical imaging since Wilhelm Rontgen discovered that they could be used to visualize bone in 1895/96. They also check his responsiveness to see if there's brain damage or coma and treat him as a hypothermia patient. Oxygen therapy has been used since well before the beginning of the 20th century, though at this point, they didn't use it continuously the way we do now. It wasn't until the 60s that that changed for the better so Steve being fitted with a mask and left that way is unusual. Surgically placed feeding tubes have been in use since the mid-1800s. Outdoor payphones have been around in the US since 1905. And yes, the dead don't bleed because they generally don't have a blood pressure of their own aside from what gravity provides.
> 
> As Ive mentioned about a bajillion times, _Timely_ was Marvel's original name and I always feature Steve working for them in some capacity, blah blah blah...
> 
> As ever, hope you enjoyed! I was thinking about making this one a multi-part story, but I'm not sure when the next installment will be out. In the meantime, for more Steggy, check out [Margaret, May I?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1815082) or make a request on [tumblr](onheil-ferguson.tumblr.com). Anon is usually on!


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